Donald Shaw Maclaughlan

(1876 – 1938)

Born in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada, Donald Shaw MacLaughlan moved with his family to Boston and acquired his early knowledge of printers and printmaking at the Boston Public Library. He travelled to Europe, enrolled in the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris, and pursued further studies with Jean Leon Gerome and Jean Paul Laurens. His first etchings date from 1899, He became acquainted with James NcNeill Whistler and other artists who created etchings and spent time studying the etchings of Rembrandt van Rijn and other old masters in the collection of the Bibliothèque Nationale. Both Rembrandt and Whistler would have major influences on his art. San Francisco’s Panama-Pacific International Exposition showed seven of his prints and awarded him a gold medal. MacLaughlan also won medals in expositions in Buffalo, Leipzig and Rome. He was represented by the Albert Roullier Art Galleries in Chicago, which mounted several exhibitions of his work. London’s Fine Art Society organized an exhibition of some two hundred of his works in 1926.

In 1931 he created a set of twelve etched views of Chicago, and the following year won a prize at the annual exhibition of the Society of Etchers in New York City. During his career he created some three hundred prints. In 1935 he was elected an associate member of the National Academy of Design, New York City, and was elected a full member in 1938, the of his death at Marrakesh, Morocco.